Tarnish on Pewter
by ShinyAeon
Summary: A vignette about Brock's parents. Alone in the darkness of their room, Lola asks Flint something he never expected to hear. PewterElderShipping Flint


**Tarnish on Pewter**  
by ShinyAeon

The bedroom was quiet, and deep grey shadows lay still all around them.

"Flint?" Lola whispered.

The senior gymleader rolled over, fighting the sleepiness that had stolen over him. "Yes, oh love of my life?"

Lola took a deep breath. "Am I...a bad mother?"

Flint went still; he may as well have turned to the stone he was named after. This was the last thing he expected to hear from his vivacious Lola, and it was the last thing he was prepared to answer.

"Why...would you ask that?" he tried, and gathered her in his arms.

Lola didn't resist him, but she didn't relax against him, either; it was like hugging a padded board. Flint could just see her profile, snub nose and high forehead, her silhouette dark against the glow from the hall light shining under the door.

"After all that's happened lately, how could I _not_ ask that?" she said, her voice a little hoarse. "I left my children all alone because two thieves gave us a free vacation. Would a good mother even _think_ of doing that?"

Flint sighed. "Sweetheart, we talked about this. Even Brock admitted that those two can be very convincing when they try. Forest is almost eleven now, more than old enough to be on his own if he wanted. And those 'promoters' assured us they'd cleared it with Nurse Joy to look in while we were away..."

Lola finally turned toward him, curling against his chest. "But we knew nothing about them, how could we fall for that? And then I keep thinking about the last time Brock was home...when I tried to re-do the gym...."

Flint rested his chin on top of her head, smelling the woodsy scent of her shampoo as her fluffy curls ticked his skin. "_That_ was not a case of bad parenting, Lo. Just a case of bad taste."

She chuckled with him, and he started to relax.

But then she said, very softly, "I notice...that nowhere yet have you told me 'no.'"

_Damnit_.

Flint didn't know what to do. He loved Lola so much, and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. But he couldn't lie outright to her, and she wasn't letting it go – not like she had before.

"I..._am_ a bad mother, aren't I?" she whispered.

Flint swallowed. "Y...you're...a better mother...than I am a father," he offered weakly.

She started to cry, and Flint held her, aching with all his heart.

Flint had faced his own incompetence as a parent before he returned to Pewter, but he'd tried to spare Lola that. He didn't want to hurt her, he didn't want to kill that spritely, mischievous spark in her. _And besides_, he reasoned, _all of it was really MY fault – if I hadn't run out on her, she never would have done the same_.

Nevertheless, Lola had abandoned their family, too, forcing Brock to be a full-time surrogate parent, so she could search for her errant husband. Flint tried hard, but he couldn't deny that - even though her reasons had been better - she'd made the same bad choice he had.

When her sobbing finally slowed, she asked, in a shaky whisper, "How did we ever mess up so badly?"

Flint sighed. He'd asked himself that so many times.... "We were...awfully young when we married." They'd miscalculated, and made a mistake that eventually became Brock. Only the fact that a new father learning to run a gym and a new mother trying to finish college could find little free time to spend together kept that sort of "miscalculation" from occurring again for six years. Forrest had been a surprise also, but by then the Pewter Gym was doing well, Lola had gotten her art degree, and they were a little readier for such surprises; after that, Salvador, Yolanda, and Tommy were happily planned.

Then they tried to stop...but after four spectacular failures with multiple methods of birth control, the last one resulting in Tilly and Billy, Flint had finally broken down and gotten his vasectomy. It was a hard decision, because he loved children – they both did – but they'd had to face the fact that either they were too careless, too unlucky...or just too damn fertile to manage it on their own,

And that was when his trouble had begun, Flint realized. Had his wounded male pride helped make him restless? Flint hoped not. Nevertheless, he had a losing streak at the gym, and began to wonder if it was because he'd never been on a proper journey.

Brock was just old enough to take over the gym battles then, and Lola agreed that he could go. It was only supposed to be a few months...but a few turned into six, then into twelve, and longer.

Flint hadn't even gotten the badges to get into the Indigo League. He couldn't get past that damn Sabrina, and he had too much pride to go to one of the newer, less established gyms to get his eighth badge. No, for Flint of Pewter, son of six generations of gym leaders, only badges from the First Eight were good enough. And so he kept wandering around, challenging random trainers, thinking that if he just stayed out a _little_ longer he would finally become good enough...but his confidence had been crushed and the truth, he realized now, was that he'd just been too ashamed to face his family after his failures.

Then he checked his private voice mail, and found the message from Lola: "Honey, I miss you...and I think I'm going crazy here. I don't think I can cope without you for much longer, please come home! I don't know how Brock stays so calm, the twins have reached that 'no' stage and nothing I do is good enough...Forrest and 'Dore keep telling me how bad my cooking is, and Yolanda says she hates me and I never let her do anything and Tommy won't go to kindergarten any more and today Suzie tore her dress and I screamed at her just like my mother used to scream at me! I can't stand myself any more. If you don't come back, then I'm going to come find you, and I don't _want_ to leave Brock all alone with these monsters, oh, how can I say that, I love them, but I – I have to get away from them before I – I'm really afraid, I don't like myself at all any more. Please call me...please...?"

But by the time he had gotten the message, it was too late: Lola had left, to look for him or to just get away, and then he was more ashamed than ever.

He'd made his way back to Pewter, because he feared that Brock would soon be having a similar breakdown. Of course, when he arrived, he found anything but.

Seeing Brock looking so grown-up, and riding herd on his siblings so smoothly was...quite a shock. Under Flint and Lola, the house had been chaotic - a playful chaos, but still a bit of a madhouse, always in disarray and never quiet. But there was Brock, keeping not only the house clean and the kids well-behaved, but the gym's Pokemon looking healthier than they ever had before; and they all clearly adored him. Brock had discovered his true talents lay in nurturing, and it showed.

And yet that only made Flint more ashamed. It _should_ have been him and Lola in there, reading to their children, getting them all bathed and to bed and up and dressed and out to school on time. That Brock had proved a competent gym leader so young was a little...daunting to Flint. The fact that he'd done so and _also_ shown his father (and mother!) up at parenting so completely felt like a slap in the face.

And so Flint had begun...selling rocks. Keeping an eye on his family without letting them know he was near, convincing himself this was for the best...that this way he would neither be messing things up by his presence, nor leaving Brock totally without support. After all, he thought, he could always step in if a crisis ever developed. The fact that Brock had no idea - that he still thought the burden lay solely on his own young shoulders - made Flint's gesture a weak one; but by then Flint thought weak gestures were all he was capable of.

Then that boy and his Pikachu came by, and Flint saw himself in the impatient young trainer: rash, eager, proud, and too stubborn for his own good. And in helping the kid, he'd finally gained the courage to do what he knew he should have long before: become a father again, and let Brock pursue his own dreams instead of maintaining his parents' neglected ones. Flint began to feel he'd finally made attonement for his disastrous choices.

But he hadn't, had he?

Neither to Brock, to the other kids...nor to his wife. Because even though he'd returned and taken up his fatherhood again, he'd tried to protect Lola – even lying to that Ketchum boy, saying she'd died, so he wouldn't have to admit the woman he adored had run out on their children, too (and hadn't Brock burned his ear about _that_ untruth, the first time he called home).

When Lola learned Flint was back, she rushed home again. Flint reassured her, waving off her doubts about herself, taking it all upon his own shoulders...and keeping her from learning from her mistakes. He suspected that's why her diving into random hobbies had increased lately, gotten a little obsessive...even desperate. She sensed the truth that he wouldn't tell her, and the conflict kept her restless.

But Lola was talking again. "Th-they say it's three strikes, and you're out. This was our third, wasn' it? It proves we're really not...cut out for this."

Flint sighed. He'd had similar thoughts, many many times. "Maybe. But cut out or not, we've still got a job to do."

"_How?_" she said, her voice hoarse and full of desperation. "How do I do that? How do _you_ do it?"

He held her tighter. "It's...hard." It was only since he'd realized he'd _already_ failed, as completely as he possibly could, that he had the courage to come back and try again. "But I figure I can't possibly do worse than I have already, so even if my efforts aren't that good, they might at least be...good _enough._"

Lola gave a forlorn little laugh. "That does make it a little less scary, doesn't it? But no easier...to keep going. How do I face the children now that I know? How will I ever face Brock again? I'm so ashamed...."

"It...will get better," Flint said, hating that his lively, joyful wife was going through this, and hating it more that protecting her had just made it worse. But at least, now, he could use his experience to make her way a little easier. "You just....do what that little friend of Brock's does. You keep trying your best; and when you mess up, do your best to fix it."

"A-at least...I don't have to try...alone?" she said, finishing in barely a whisper.

And Flint realized something else: she'd been half-afraid, all this time, that he might leave again.

Was there any way in which he _hadn't_ hurt the people he loved most?

But there it was: he'd already failed, competely and utterly. All he could do now was do his best to try to fix it.

"No," he said. "Not alone. Never again."

And she started to cry once more; and he cried with her, together in the grey dark.


End file.
